Climate Commission shut down (expect the war on science to get worse)

The Abbott government has abolished the Climate Commission, which had been established to provide public information on the effects of and potential solutions to global warming.

Environment Minister Greg Hunt rang chief climate commissioner Tim Flannery at 10am on Thursday to tell him the body had been shut down.

Tim Flannery quoted:

Speaking in Melbourne, Professor Flannery, who has been Australia’s chief climate commissioner since February 2011, said Mr Hunt had been very gracious in their conversation and had thanked him and the other climate commissioners for their work.

Professor Flannery said Mr Hunt did not indicate to him why the Coalition had abolished the commission. He said a formal letter from the government was on its way.

He said the commission in its work it had stayed out of politics and stuck to the facts.

“As a result we have developed a reputation as a reliable, apolitical source of facts on all aspects on climate change,” Professor Flannery said.

“I believe Australians have a right to know, a right to authoritative, independent and accurate information on climate change.

“We have just seen one of the earliest ever starts to the bushfire season in Sydney following the hottest 12 months on record. Last summer was the hottest on record, breaking over 120 heat records across Australia.

“As global action on climate change deepens, propaganda aimed at misinforming the public about climate change, and so blunting any action, increases.”

And so it begins.

History will not be kind to Abbott, but future generations will pay the price for such willed ignorance.

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110 thoughts on “Climate Commission shut down (expect the war on science to get worse)”

Absolutely spot on. It is already clear that things are worse than they used to be, earlier and more severe bushfires, worse storms, droughts and floods. The impacts aren’t even future predictions but today’s news.

Yet Abbott and the Deniers think abolishing the commission charged with informing us will make it just go away. That sticking heads deeper int sand will make it all not happen. How stupid and how sad.

35 Legislate a cap on government spending and tax as a percentage of GDP

36 Legislate a balanced budget amendment which strictly limits the size of budget deficits and the period the federal government can be in deficit

37 Force government agencies to put all of their spending online in a searchable database

38 Repeal plain packaging for cigarettes and rule it out for all other products, including alcohol and fast food

39 Reintroduce voluntary student unionism at universities

40 Introduce a voucher scheme for secondary schools

41 Repeal the alcopops tax

42 Introduce a special economic zone in the north of Australia including:
a) Lower personal income tax for residents
b) Significantly expanded 457 Visa programs for workers
c) Encourage the construction of dams

43 Repeal the mining tax

44 Devolve environmental approvals for major projects to the states

45 Introduce a single rate of income tax with a generous tax-free threshold

46 Cut company tax to an internationally competitive rate of 25 per cent

47 Cease funding the Australia Network

48 Privatise Australia Post

49 Privatise Medibank

50 Break up the ABC and put out to tender each individual function

51 Privatise SBS

52 Reduce the size of the public service from current levels of more than 260,000 to at least the 2001 low of 212,784

53 Repeal the Fair Work Act

54 Allow individuals and employers to negotiate directly terms of employment that suit them

55 Encourage independent contracting by overturning new regulations designed to punish contractors

56 Abolish the Baby Bonus

57 Abolish the First Home Owners’ Grant

58 Allow the Northern Territory to become a state

59 Halve the size of the Coalition front bench from 32 to 16

60 Remove all remaining tariff and non-tariff barriers to international trade

61 Slash top public servant salaries to much lower international standards, like in the United States

62 End all public subsidies to sport and the arts

63 Privatise the Australian Institute of Sport

64 End all hidden protectionist measures, such as preferences for local manufacturers in government tendering

65 Abolish the Office for Film and Literature Classification

66 Rule out any government-supported or mandated internet censorship

67 Means test tertiary student loans

68 Allow people to opt out of superannuation in exchange for promising to forgo any government income support in retirement

69 Immediately halt construction of the National Broadband Network and privatise any sections that have already been built

Information control is central to fascism…and the boardroom. So the clever Australians who fell for the COALitions prospectus will just double-down in their evidence free sneering; to admit a mistake is too painful.

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation cannot be dismissed by decree, however, and we’ll get plenty of opportunity to see the government squirm in attempts to explain how it is anathema to their plan before they can legislate it away next year.

At some point, surely, the evidence will be so clear, so unequivocal and visible that even the stubbornest deniers will have to acknowledge reality or perish?

The irony (if that’s the right word?) is that the longer the Deniers and conspiracy thinkers delay action and hold back more moderate steps the more severe and drastic the measures that will be needed to mitigate and tackle the problems will become and the more furious the survivors enduring the new wrecked world will be against them.

The CC has been terminated precisely because the evidence is unequivocal. Professional denial is perfectly aware of that, industry is aware of it. By backing the production of elaborate hoaxes like the NIPCC report industry is acknowledging the efficacy of the IPCC and the reality of the observations and strength of forecast.

The stubbornest rejectionists will never be moved. In the meantime those with heavy investment in fossil fuel continue to fight tooth and nail to maintain the value of their assets. It’s about their wallets, now, and hang the evidence. All the evidence tells them is they have to get lobbying and get lying to avoid stranded assets and prevent realistic governance providing the right policies for climate change.

It would seem with Admiral Abbott at the helm, the good ship Australia has altered course and is now charging headlong into the 19th Century. I’ve already met some people who regret casting a vote in favour of the LNP.

John, the truth in reporting stopped years ago. I’m now waiting for a Chinese style Internet censorship regime, to be instituted. After all, Abbott has his own AFP, Navy and Media. FTTH will be FTTC(censor)

What a wonderful promise it was, J Gids…did ya ever wonder why it was necessary to formulate such a policy? Nah, it’s just good that they’re keeping there word,that’s all we have to consider…

Yeah, full marks for delivering….delivering a negative outcome for accountability.
The Libs, after making endless and cynical use of the boat arrival info, now want to deny their opponents a chance to be as cynical as they were. The burning issue is not so important all of a sudden. Making hypocrisy central to their operational philosophy.

“did ya ever wonder why it was necessary to formulate such a policy? ”

Yes. Did you ponder there might be a valid reason behind it? Nah, much easier to whine that they are doing something you don’t like.

As I understand it the thinking was to keep information away from the people smuggler syndicates so as to hamper their operations. Since the “stop the Boats” policy is being run as a military operation, the military will decide what can and cannot be passed.

It takes a a special type of superiority complex to assume that anyone doing something you don’t like has no logical reason for doing so.

Where did I claim there was no logic to the policy? They deny the opposition and the media the timely information that they themselves exploited politically. At once cynical and framed as ‘operationally justifiable’. I take it back,you’re not blind at all. You’ve got one eye back.

The right-wing media has helped the new government frame this issue from when they were in opposition. Push factors were under-reported, background neglected. The legitimacy of the refugees motives was subordinated to the fanning of phobia over foreigners and the demonisation of those who exploited them. That idiot candidate in Western Sydney was convinced that migrants were slowing her commute. Labor was ‘luring refugees to their death’….

Now let’s all shut up and let the ‘adults’ run the show [talking of superiority complexes–you guys are always projecting]. Info control,and a policy of tow-back, boat buys and ‘wardens’ [unilaterally declared] and indeterminate incarceration as before. Just much less visible.

No john it’s lying on your part when you put things in quotes that the person never said. You do it intentionally to modify the statement in order to meet your goal of discrediting the person. You can’t simply debate so you intentionally mislead, distort, lie, insult, and call names like a schoolyard bully. Typical RWA behavior as described by that author you linked.

Right john I was supposed to remember that I posted it on Facebook almost 2 years ago and that you went and read all of my Facebook posts to find it. I repeatedly asked you for a link and you refused to post it because that would have let everyone know that you were reading my Facebook posts and you didn’t want people here to know that you were cyberstalking me. That’s why you wouldn’t post the link.

You are extremely dishonest john byatt. You are a liar and a stalker and a creep. Pretty disgusting behavior from you.

Yeah John you “stumbled on it” for over a month repeatedly reading it and posting little hints that you were reading it. Now you try to imply you just looked at it once but that’s easily proven a lie – if you like I can post the quotes with links to when you posted them to prove it.

Notice how even now he won’t admit it instead using the word “may”: “I may have stumbled across bill’s facebook”.

Lie, deny, distort, minimize, etc. etc.

Why don’t you just come clean and admit that you were reading my Facebook posts for over a month? Since you claim that you don’t have a Facebook account and one is needed to read anyone’s posts who’s account were you using? You’ve never admitted that either John. Instead you implied that you couldn’t have read my posts because you don’t have a Facebook account.

your facebook was open to public reading, as i said i found your comment on the hole near the north pole post on a blog, you have since removed it (neurotic)

it took about twenty seconds to scroll down, actually seeing what anti climate change nonsense you had on there
finding you praising god was the last thing i would have expected
as you had just stated you were an atheist

decided to let you know it was open so went back and gave you a hint without making it public for your own benefit retard

poor bill then goes john byatt stalking , rather creepy and weird person you are

why did you remove your comment on the north pole hole post?

I would say hundreds would have wanted to see what sort of idiot was commenting as even zoot said, he looked

And again you minimize and distort. Anyone with Facebook knows it takes more than 20 seconds to read through 2 years of posts. And I don’t post about climate on Facebook so that’s an outright lie. Again you fail to admit that you repeatedly read my Facebook posts – it wasn’t just once and certainly not for “20 seconds”.

As I said, you lie, deny, distort, minimize, exaggerate, etc.

Now you try to turn it around and accuse me of stalking you. That’s funny.

You’ve been exposed John. Best thing you can do is just admit it and try to move on. I don’t think any of the regulars here care anyway but then they probably had you figured out a long time ago.

COALition boat policy document: page 3 and page 18 are near identical run throughs of the same hyperbole and polemic…obviously for those who had forgotten their fear in the 14 pages of intervening yawn-inducing wishin’ and hopin’….plus obligatory reference to St John of Howard and his past visionary actions and words.

Fascinating that you guys are so down on coal when it’s such an important energy source in Australia and key export. From what I can find it looks like 40% of Australia’s energy consumption is from coal and exports accounted for $36 billion in 2010. Over 76% of electricity generation is from coal. It seems likely that the energy you’re using to power the computers and networks to post here are fueled by coal.

More recent data: $44 billion in exports for 2010-2011 and 36,000 jobs from coal. Australia’s dependence on coal for generating electricity is one of the reasons that Australians enjoy such low electricity rates compared to most countries particularly European countries.

Bill, thanks for the tu quoquery, and also for getting up to speed on our reliance on coal. When does a reliance become a dependence? When does a dominant industry also become a potential force in the shaping of domestic and international environmental policy for that industry’s own ends? Answer is, ‘too long ago’. Why must we conflate industry ends with societal ones? Our collective needs are bigger than the needs of coal miners and their shareholders, and this has been realised at various scales over the last century. This time we have to phase it all out, not just remove it from inner cities.

Personally, I’ve got solar, and feed back to the grid at times, but there’s no doubt that some coal backs it up. My opposition to coal,and expansion of its use, is based on the evidence. It’s a wonderful energy source, but that is not the problem is it? And there are alternatives.

If there were alternatives that were economically viable then you’d already be using them in greater quantities. It’s not that there aren’t alternatives it’s that all of the “green” alternatives are expensive and most, such as solar and wind, require reliable backup generation so the costs are doubled.

First paragraph– more projection from the man who voted for ‘the end justifies the means’ behavior.

Second paragraph–because I like the policy then whatever.

Keynes was making a point that policy must be subordinated to better information. The COALition subordinate better policy to ideology. The facts haven’t changed, and neither has the COALition’s treatment of them as optional. Good grief!

“In short, we are already past the point that locks in 2C of warming, and will without question go well beyond it. Even a 3C rise is looking very hard to avoid.

Very few people, even among environmentalists, have truly faced up to what the science is telling us.

This is because the implications of 3C, let alone 4C or 5C, are so horrible that we look to any possible scenario to head it off, including the canvassing of “emergency” responses such as the suspension of democratic processes.

where does hamilton call for the suspension of democracy

he is not talking in the royal we

he is referring to those who have canvassed that position

such as

James Lovelock: Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change …http://www.theguardian.com › Environment › James Lovelock‎
Mar 29, 2010 – I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.” … I like about sceptics is that in good science you need critics that make you think: ‘Crumbs, .

after whinning about being verballed this is exactly what you are doing

He doesn’t. He merely suggests it as an option if he can’t get his own way. Of course I never said he ‘called’ for the suspension of democracy. You, as usual, have reinterpreted what I said to suit or own screwy understanding and then demanded I justify something I never said. This could be a problem for you Mr B since I’m now aware of your silly childish games and will constantly point them out to others. Your major (only) way of arguiing a point might be gone.

“he is not talking in the royal we”

You are so funny. When he said “we” he didn’t include himself in that number. Do you have no shame?

Yes I’m aware that Hamilton has tried to walk away from his original views and as usual claims to have been taken out of context. A man of convictions is Clive.

I was at an Aust Institute function in Sydney around 2006 where Clive spent quite a largish part of his lecture extolling the way Churchill suspended democracy in the early 40s. Believe what you want but I know that, at a time when he thought it would play well with the comrades, he was gung-ho for the idea.

Great argument: ‘you’re deranged’… very Tony Abbott. I am indeed in grief, Tony’s promise is still-born. Watching the COALition sneak out a policy that they were too frightened to share with the people is upsetting, after all those promises of maturity and winning the people’s trust…

But it was mentioned. Not least at the national press club. That you didn’t know about it isn’t their fault. If you choose to be ignorant on these matters well that’s you’re choice. If the press decided it wasn’t worth reporting or highlighting while you think its an ‘upsetting’ policy that probably says more about you and you’re inane bias than them.

Yes, it is deranged to say that the illegals policy is a suppression of democracy.

Oh, spare me the literalist naivety, there was a touch of hyperbole in it, Gids… it is, however, very poor form to omit a very important detail like that from a long policy document from last month…carelessness? Maybe they thought Labor would steal the policy,in the dopey duopoly’s race to the bottom? And the whole policy is an affront to our international undertakings, the ones we signed up to when we were a more mature country.

I’m not surprised by any bumbling from Team Abbott, but I am affronted by the sheer gall of their triumphalism,and this purge is simply vengeful and destructive. I’ve never liked frat boy politics.

So again Mr B plays his childish little semantic games. It was mentioned as policy. But JB has decided that policy has a particular meaning and requires that I justify things within that narrow, specific meaning.

So for the children, I’ll explain again what coalition policy is/was on illegal immigrants. They decided that events on the water would be handled and controlled by the military. Even John seems to know that, which is a minor miracle in and of itself given his deficit of knowledge on such matters. A consequence of that policy was/is that information about boat arrivals and turn-backs would be controlled by the military. This was not hidden from the public but was talked of on several occasions as a consequence of the original policy.

In the fantasy world that JB inhabits , it seems that all the minutiae of every policy must be written down in some place where he is likely to trip over it, else it is invalid.

Democracy is definitely being suppressed by political donations and pay-to-access, It’s not just the COALitions fault, but they are deeply in debt to corporate donors, many of whom have kicked in large sums through third-party means. Abbott might have instructed lobbyists to exit party administration functions, but that’s the tip of the iceberg.

Gids, that last of yours is rubbish. It is no semantic game. There was no realistic mention of an info blackout. A late-in-the-day mention at a presser does not count. It is not in the written policy document.

Talking of ethics, how about the COALitions decision to sack any departmental heads [no matter where they were currently deployed] who had been involved in formulation and implementation of carbon policy details here

…that is sick, and crazy. This is what Fascists do. Not only to they dissolve departments and functions on ideological lines, they dismiss expertise and degrade capability.

I know you’ll probably not get this and most definitely won’t agree with it, so I’ll say it once but won’t engage in a long to and fro on something you’ll never accept.

The Aust Public service is somewhat politicised in favour of the ALP which is why they and their Green controllers do so well in Canberra elections. Lib governments have to be cognoscente of the fact that, to some extent, they are working with the enemy.

This goes double for some department heads, especially those hand-picked and promoted by ALP governments. In the case of the three now ex-heads, each was promoted into their positions because of close ALP ties and because they were wedded to the ALP’s green agenda.

They were never going to survive the change of government and unlike some they probably recognised some time ago that the change was inevitable.

There is no way Abbott et al could allow people who have been major exponents of a policy that is now defunct to remain in positions where they could leak against the government more than would otherwise be the case.

These sackings are an inevitable result of the ALP’s politicisation of parts of the Public service.

I get it, Gids. You’re deranged. ‘ALP and their Green controllers’. Baby hate speech,no evidence. You’re also an embodiment of the paranoia that, by your account, animates Abbott. Abbot wants to destroy the legislation, bury the architecture, and get rid of the economic bureaucrats who helped make it functional, because they could leak against him?. By accounts able people who served under both parties. Just happen to be a little too Keynesian for the IPA.

Now before you suggest I’m paranoid, just remember who the IPA are. A lobby and policy group whose financial backing is unknown. Very conservative, neo-libertarian,small government ideologues with close and blatant ties to climate disinformation. They produce demonstrably wrong ‘information’ on climate science. A major producer of COALition policy. Remember their birthday bash in Melbourne recently? Compered by Andrew Bolt, incorrigible dog-whistler and convicted defamer, all the Lib boys were there to pay tribute to chief speaker Rupert Murdoch [engineer of a distinctly feudal family veto over News Corp,and head of a group whose executives were involved in bribery, as well as hosting disinformation generators FauxNews] This is a bunch of people involved in influence-peddling,anti-democratic activity, anti-union [except professional bodies],anti-disclosure, anti-tax, anti-regulation [except the ones that benefit them],and they are being feted by politicians who are in awe of their brass. What the hell is the IPA doing anywhere near our democracy? It is intertwined with News Corp, supplying opinion and culture war material, and other diversion.

And you’re saying the ALP politicised the public service? The Coalition are the ones who started it, and ratcheted up the gags,and brought in the spinners. You might be too young to remember.

Well said Nick.
It should be noted that conservatives are mainly motivated by fear and hatred.
By definition, they despise change, progressiveness, taking risks, foreigners, the poor, the young, alternative life styles, the sexual spectrum, equal rights, feminism, trade unions etc etc etc……

In politics, if you were to remove the ALP and the greens, the COALition would atrophy and die. They only exist as an anti-dote to progressive politics and history tells us that they rarely produce original policy other than taxations measures.

Their problem becomes apparent when they cannot stand up and speak without denigrating their opponents. After a while in power, their absence of any ideas becomes apparent and they stall. Given the shallowness of the new government, I expect to see this happen sooner than usual.

and it seems that he walked away from that supposed comment before he made it

“Not only have I never held such a view, I have repeatedly rejected it when it has been put to me after public lectures over several years. When I once noted that some people feel so frustrated they begin to talk about suspending democracy The Australian’s Cut & Paste section – which specialises in verballing and misrepresenting those the newspaper has decided are its enemies – cut and pasted my words to make it seem that I had advocated such a view.

The newspaper published a letter from me rejecting the attribution and pointing to the passages in my book that explicitly reject any anti-democratic suggestions”

so he even had a book out at the time that was the exact opposite of the newspaper claim

that is not walking away that is explaining the lie using facts

everyone should hope to F***K they do not end up on trial with you as a juror,

Look JB, we can all see that you are very anxious to defend every two-bit alarmist who suffers a case of foot-in-mouth disease and wants to repent without actually repenting. But it really is very childish not to mention futile.

He said it. No one, not even one of those nasty denialists made him say it. If he didn’t mean it then why say it? If he truly thought that suppression of democracy was beyond the pale then why not say so in the original article? Why raise it as something that “we” might have to consider? Why not say that some people (those other “we” ?) think it but they go too far?

He said it of his own free will. He said it because he believed, or at least because he thought it’d play well with his target audience. It was only when he realised that a large part of the audience were offended that he tried to back track, to say that black is white.

Its touching that you are so determined to accept that black is white and to defend him in his idiocy. and to attack anyone who realises that black ain’t white. But it just drags you into his whirlpool of idiocy.

” Mr Hamilton who thinks we might need to suppress democracy to save the planet”.

” I never said he ‘called’ for the suspension of democracy.”

“He said it”

“If he truly thought that suppression of democracy was beyond the pale then why not say so in the original article?”

why would he need to say that when you have said that he did not call for democracy to be suspended in the first place

all we have is you not having a clue what was stated

Hamilton
“Very few people, even among environmentalists, have truly faced up to what the science is telling us.

This is because the implications of 3C, let alone 4C or 5C, are so horrible that we look to any possible scenario to head it off, including the canvassing of “emergency” responses such as the suspension of democratic processes.

you read that as “He merely suggests it as an option if he can’t get his own way’

were does he suggest it as an option if he cannot get his own way ?

what he would have said if your were to have a case would be

“we need to look at any possible scenario”

which is exactly what you changed it to in your first link as quoted above

so he has not included the word “need” but you added it in your first link comment

No advocacy, Hamilton is considering the worst scenario in the light of historical responses to crises. A pretty anodyne remark. A what-if, a hope-not. In a book,ages ago.

But that’s all it takes for the genuinely f**ked up foot-monkeys of the rightist blogosphere to start banging their cups, then chanting the same collection of wrongness, scorn and scatalogy as the last time.

How many years have they been rising to the call of their organ grinders Sinclair Davidson, Andrew Bolt, Tim Blair?..’get out the Hamilton,get out the Hamilton’ they gibber… or can we have the Flannery,the Flannery!

This sort of decontextualised chum is the testimony to the intellectual laziness of rejectionists. Every few weeks, it gets handed out. The foot-monkeys beat their chests and bare their teeth. Thus they keep it fresh,they never want to let that flash of disgust go. It was never really ‘he advocated’ or ‘he predicted’. Only strict isolation from context allowed these dimwits to entertain it as reality.

That is distortion, and that is pack behavior, and it is beneath contempt when it is so very easy to find and put the old original words into perspective. Let it go, Gids, it’s beneath you. You’re better than that.

Come on John, give him a break. We all know what happens, when the blood flow to the brain is reduced, because it’s needed to engorge, which apparently, according to him, is an extremely large organ. Where as Bill, just suffers from envy.

Hamilton said “This is because the implications of 3C, let alone 4C or 5C, are so horrible that we look to any possible scenario to head it off, including the canvassing of “emergency” responses such as the suspension of democratic processes.”

According to JB:

* when Hamilton said this he’d already disavowed the notion in his book. So why did he say that suspension of democracy is a possible scenario? Why say it when you already said (apparently) that it wasn’t a possible scenario? well according to JB the answer to that conundrum is really quite simple. The answer is ….shut up,denier.

* when Hamilton said “we look to…”, according to JB he was using a hitherto unknown meaning of the word “we”. Previously the word had been “used by a speaker to refer to himself or herself and one or more other people considered together.” But this new version of the word completely revolutionised the meaning so that the word “we” no longer referred to the speaker but only to others. So (apparently) when Hamilton said “we look to…the suspension of democratic processes”, he didn’t mean he was doing the looking. No, perish the thought. It was all those other “we” over there.

So when Hamilton said “we look to any possible scenario to head it off, including the canvassing of “emergency” responses such as the suspension of democratic processes” what he really meant (and anyone who wasn’t in denial would know this!) was that I (CH) don’t think we look to the suspension of democracy but all those other ‘we’ over there think it, and if only I had more space in this article I’d explain to you why its a terrible idea. Doesn’t get simpler than that, does it?

“What Kahan has really shown is that conservative republicans are barking mad. Sadly so.
His study certainly “supports the inference that Republicans/conservatives reason in a manner that is different from and less reasoned than Democrats/liberals.” ”

i.e. Sadly, conservatives may be handicapped – and it is likely to be a waste of time debating them.

“A veteran politician from the UK Independence Party (UKIP) has been stripped of the party whip role after describing a room full of women as “sluts”….”

Raises another question: What possesses some women to become liberal politicians? Do they really expect to be rewarded with cabinet positions? Do they really think their male colleagues believe in equality?

The fringe have taken over the centre, while relentlessly protesting that the Greens are dangerous. This is a government of crackpottery, who maintain the surreal self-view that they are conservative, a view partly enabled by a supine sycophantic media.

Look at The COALitions actions: party figures openly associating themselves with anti-governance, anti-transparency elements, preferencing lunatic fringe parties [one had a platform including putting an Australian on Mars], rejection of mainstream science, allegiance to discredited economic theory, shameless hypocrisy in information blackouts, vengeful purging of PS management, marginalisation of social realities by cancelling ministries, inversion of reality as a campaign tactic [ accusing the ABC of leftism while it is actually giving space to ex Lib ministers and IPA interns ].

…these are the actions of dangerous radicals, not an inclusive party of realists. There is much more of their fact-averse lunacy to come.

CONSENSUS has its strengths and weaknesses. In politics it can sometimes be a useful model; in other spheres, not so. Until recently it was not a term we associated with science, where the testing of provable facts takes precedence. The fact, for instance, that Nicolaus Copernicus failed to win a public consensus during his lifetime did not alter the reality of his postulations that the Earth was not at the centre of the universe. Likewise, the Earth was a sphere long before the flat Earth consensus dissipated. In that seminal study on such matters, Monty Python’s Life of Brian, the point is clarified. An idolising crowd is told they should not follow Brian as the Messiah, but think for themselves. “You’re all individuals,” Brian tells them. “Yes,” the crowd responds in unison. “We are all individuals.” Then a lone voice pipes up. “I’m not.” In this case, the consensus was wrong; as was the dissenter. – See more at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/editorials/testing-the-climate-consensus/story-e6frg71x-1226724010908#sthash.L87IsFOs.dpuf

[Response: This is written as if discussing the science and coming to a consensus on what is known, what is uncertain and how this might be quantified is some kind of tyranny. It isn’t – it is simply what people do; this demonisation of agreement is verging on the ridiculous. – gavin]